Hairy Puccoon
Lithospérmum pilòsum
Yellow
Spring, summer
Northwest, Utah, etc.
A rather pretty plant, about a foot tall, with several, stout, yellowish-green stems, covered with white hairs and very leafy, springing from a thick perennial root. The leaves are bluish-gray green and downy, harsh on the under side, and the flowers are numerous and pleasantly scented, with a very hairy calyx and a salver-form corolla, about three-eighths of an inch across, silky outside, the throat downy inside, but without crests. The flowers are yellow, an unusual shade of pale corn-color, and harmonize with the pale foliage, but are not conspicuous, and the flower cluster is so crowded with leaves and leafy bracts that it is not effective. This grows in dry fields, as far east as Nebraska, and sometimes makes pretty little bushes, over two feet across.
Hairy Puccoon—Lithospermum pilosum.
Wild Forget-me-not—Lappula velutina.
Pretty Puccoon
Lithospérmum angustifòlium
Yellow
Spring
West, etc.
These are pretty flowers, but have a disagreeable smell. They are perennials, with a deep root and hairy or downy, branching stems, from six inches to two feet high, and hairy or downy leaves, which are rather grayish green. The flowers are in terminal leafy clusters and are of two sorts. The corollas of the earlier ones are very pretty, clear bright yellow, sometimes nearly an inch and a half long, with toothed lobes, which are charmingly ruffled at the edges, and with crests in the throat, but the later flowers are small, pale, and inconspicuous. This grows in dry places, especially on the prairies, and is very widely distributed in the western and west central states.
Gromwell
Lithospérmum multiflòrum
Yellow
Summer
Ariz., Utah, etc.
This has a rough, hairy stem, about a foot tall, and dull green, rough, hairy leaves, with bristles along the edges. The yellow flowers are half an inch long and form rather pretty coiled clusters. This grows in open woods at the Grand Canyon, and is found as far east as New Mexico and Colorado.
There are a good many kinds of Amsinckia, natives of the western part of our country and of Mexico and South America. They are rather difficult to distinguish, rough, hairy or bristly, annual herbs, the bristles usually from a raised base, and with yellow flowers, in curved, rather showy, clusters. The corolla is more or less salver-form, without crests, but with folds; the stamens and pistil not protruding, the stigma two-lobed. In order to insure cross pollination by insects, in some kinds the flowers are of two types, as concerns the insertion of the stamens on the corolla and the length of the style. Several of these plants are valuable in Arizona for early spring stock feed, and the leaves of young plants are eaten by the Pima Indians for greens and salads.
